Families 'caught by surprise' with closure of French daycare in Lowertown

Adam Feibel, Ottawa Citizen

Updated: July 22, 2015

Souneeta Millington, left, and her two children Jaya and Kiran, with Renée Soublière and Etienne Trepenier. All three are parents with children at Beausoleil Child Care Centre. Adam Feibel / Ottawa Citizen

Nearly 50 families hope they can stop the City of Ottawa from closing the Beausoleil Child Care Centre, a francophone daycare service in Lowertown that caters largely to low-income families.

Parent Etienne Trepanier said families were told in June that repairs to the York Street building would start by mid-July but that children would still be able to attend throughout the construction.

That changed when the city notified parents and staff on July 9 that the centre would close on Aug. 31 for a two-year-long repair job, and that children would have to be relocated.

“Everybody was caught by surprise,” said Trepanier.

In response, the affected families formed a group called SOS Beausoleil in hopes of keeping the daycare centre from closing.

Beausoleil, one of two French-language preschool daycares run by the city, offers care to 49 children in Lowertown and Sandy Hill, with 45 of the spots dedicated to low-income families.

Trepanier said he was fortunate to get his young daughter into the last available spot at the nearby Aladin Childcare Services facility, but he stands behind his friends and fellow parents who weren’t so lucky.

“Get back to the waiting list — that’s basically what (the city) said,” he said. “There’s no guarantee that first, it’ll be in the same neighbourhood, and second, that it will be a francophone daycare.”

The group of parents wrote to Rideau-Vanier ward Coun. Mathieu Fleury about their concerns over the daycare’s sudden closure, saying the city should have had better foresight and made prior arrangements.

Fleury, chair of Ottawa Community Housing, said repairs to the OCH-owned building are unfortunate but necessary. The daycare’s closure was aided by the fact that there’s availability at other daycares within a two-kilometre radius to accommodate the children.

“The spots are guaranteed, they have subsidies, there’s enough capacity at childcare centres nearby in French,” said Fleury. “I sympathize with the parents, and we’re working with them to find the best childcare centre in the neighbourhood. Construction does need to go ahead and we wish the OCH would have had the contractor schedule earlier and the city then could have informed them sooner … but at the same time, it’s not like parents were left empty-handed.”

He said seven families decided to move their children proactively upon learning there would be construction, 33 have been given confirmed spots at nearby daycares, and the others have been given subsidies and are left to decide which childcare centre their children will attend in the interim.

But Trepanier said it just puts an extra burden on the city’s daycare system.

“What that does is have an impact on those parents who are on the waiting list and are going to get bumped because spots are just vanishing like that,” he said.

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